THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
May 20, 2021 at 14:55 JST
The Tokyo District Court on May 19 ordered a man to pay 1.29 million yen ($11,800) for defaming reality TV star Hana Kimura on Twitter following her suicide.
Kimura, a professional wrestler who starred in the show “Terrace House,” took her own life in May 2020 after being bullied online. She was 22 years old.
Her mother, Kyoko, 44, had sought 2.94 million yen in damages from the man.
“Character assassination inflicts a permanent wound in the heart," she said at a news conference after the ruling. "I want to save people who suffer from defamation by establishing a nonprofit organization for them to consult.”
Since the defendant did not contest the case, Presiding Judge Momoko Ikehara said the court decided he had “admitted to the accusation brought by the plaintiff.”
When a person does not contest a case against them through an oral argument and other proceedings, they are deemed to have confessed to the deed they have been accused of, under the Code of Civil Procedure.
According to the plaintiff, the defendant, who resides in Nagano Prefecture, posted messages on Twitter including, “Your death makes everybody happy. Thank you” and “I was enjoying 'Terrace House' but it is canceled because of your suicide. Go to hell.”
The plaintiff called the messages “extremely heinous” and said the man had posted them shielded by anonymity.
The messages, she said, violated the bereaved family’s emotions and were disrespectful of their cherished memories of her daughter.
Prior to the lawsuit, the plaintiff asked Twitter to release the information of people who posted hateful comments, which revealed the man's identity.
Kyoko Kimura is expected to take legal action against other people who posted comments about her daughter as well.
She said the man may have tried to evade her lawsuit by not contesting her allegations, but added, “he cannot escape from the fact that he committed defamation.”
(This article was written by Yuri Murakami and Emi Iwata.)
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Kyoko Kimura, mother of a professional wrestler and reality TV star who took her own life in May 2020, at a news conference on May 19 (Shunsuke Abe)
